Allen's Thoughts…

I recently spent a few weeks in Asia, visiting Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan before returning to Toronto.

Summary Driven by rapid advances in AI, the collapse in the cost of intelligence has arrived—bringing massive disruption and generational opportunities.

A solo musician doesn’t need a conductor.

Yesterday was Star Wars Day — aka “May the Fourth be with you” — and it got me thinking, so I put together this blog post.

Thank you to The Globe for publishing my op-ed about AI last week.

When Two Small Fish first started in 2015, we formulated our “Thesis 1.0” to focus on network effects exclusively.

At Two Small Fish Ventures, we love backing founders who are not only transforming user behaviour but also unlocking new and impactful value.

The Two Small Fish team is thrilled to announce our investment in Hepzibah AI, a new venture founded by Untether AI’s co-founders, serial entrepreneurs Martin Snelgrove and Raymond Chik, along with David Lynch and Taneem Ahmed.

Note: One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from entrepreneurs is that TSF partners don’t think, act, or speak like typical VCs.

It’s been almost three years since I stepped aside from my role as CEO of Wattpad, yet I’m still amazed by the reactions I get when I bump into people who have been part of the Wattpad story.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Richard Sutton, co-founder of Openmind Research Institute and a pioneer in Reinforcement Learning, for being honoured with the 2024 Turing Award—often described as the “Nobel Prize of Computing.”

In many companies, the bottleneck isn’t necessarily in the execution of decisions.

“Deep Tech” is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot in venture capital and startup circles, but defining it precisely is harder than it seems.

Most people don’t realize just how global Wattpad’s business is.

The tariffs are coming.

Sonos replaced its CEO last week.

Today’s blog post is written by Eva and is a reblog of what was originally shared on the Two Small Fish Ventures website.

Who are the top 50 VCs in Canada?

This is the picture I used to open our 2024 AGM a few months ago.

The next frontier of AI lies at the edge — where data is generated.

In the past few days, Eva and I had the privilege of joining the University of Toronto delegation in Stockholm to celebrate University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Physics.

Important: Before continuing, read SRTX‘s CEO Katherine Homuth’s posts first (here and here).

Note: One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from entrepreneurs is that TSF partners don’t think, act, or speak like typical VCs.

I was fortunate to not only learn from his textbook but also to be a student in his class.

There are three distinct phases in the journey of building a great tech company: technology, product, and commercialization.

Those who know me well would tell you I am a pretty boring person.

In previous blog posts (here and here), I’ve delved into the mathematical model for constructing an early-stage VC portfolio designed to achieve outsized returns.

This is a follow-up blog post to my last piece about Blumind.

When it comes to watches, my go-to is a Fitbit.

We’re thrilled to share that Printify, a company we have proudly backed since its first funding round, has entered into a merger with Printful (see report by TechCrunch).

In 2006, Wattpad started as a simple mobile reading app, mainly for classic books.

More than two decades ago, I co-founded my first company, Tira Wireless.

#paid was one of the first investments we made at Two Small Fish Ventures.

Early-stage venture capital (VC) has always been the oddball in asset management.

TLDR – 20 companies in a VC portfolio is the optimal balance between risk and reward, offering a very high chance of hitting outsized returns without significant risk of losing money.

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Eva Lau.

I’m excited to share that I have been appointed as a board member of the Openmind Research Institute!

We’re thrilled to share that Toronto-based Viggle AI, a Canadian start-up revolutionizing character animation through generative AI, has raised US$19 million in funding.

The history of computing has been a constant shift of the centre of gravity.

I haven’t been involved with Wattpad for a while now, so it’s a strange feeling—though not in a bad way—to catch up on all the details about WEBTOON and Wattpad in the SEC filing.

The month of May is Asian Heritage Month, honouring the lives and contributions of people of Asian origin.

Thank you to The Globe for publishing my second op-ed in as many weeks: The depressing numbers of the venture-capital slump don’t tell the full story.

Thank you to The Globe for publishing my op-ed about the recent capital gains tax increase last week.

Over a decade ago, in his blog post titled “Why Software is Eating the World,” Marc Andreessen explained why software was transforming industries across the globe.

In the early 2010s, when Wattpad began raising capital from Silicon Valley, Valley VCs didn’t ask me ‘if’ I would move the company or open a second office there; they asked ‘when.’

When Eva and I were on stage yesterday at Entrepreneurship Week at the University of Toronto, moderator Bianca Bharti from BetaKit asked us: “Given we are celebrating women and raising awareness about related issues this week, what do you want to tell the…

A couple of months ago, I blogged about a report from the investment firm LetkoBrosseau, titled “Canada Has Cut Back on Investing in Its Greatest Asset—Itself.”

Most of Two Small Fish Ventures’ portfolio companies are based in North America.

There’s an old saying that goes, “Know the rules of the game, and you’ll play better than anyone else.”

Diversifying a portfolio across various asset classes is the first principle for enhancing returns without significantly increasing risk from an investment standpoint.